The Hindusatan times, November 29, 1999
Teenagers forced into drug peddling
HT Correspondent (Faridabad, November 28)
THE CHANGING character of Faridabad as a fast expanding metropolitan town, with all its attendant problems, has brought in its wake a complete metamorphosis in the crime pattern. Earlier, it was only the organised and unorganised crime in the district. But now a recent phenomenon is the teenagers taking to narcotic smuggling and drug peddling.
Recently, the Faridabad police nabbed adolescents in possession of 900 grams of brown sugar and 100 kg of marijuana, valued at Rs 1 crore and Rs 2 lakh respectively, in the international market.
Commenting on the scenario, Faridabad Police Chief Ranbir Sharma said that the teenagers confined in the jails on the charge of one crime or the other, have been groomed and coerced to take to drug peddling and contraband smuggling. Dilating on the subject, he added that Bunty alias Fauji, now undergoing imprisonment in Gurgaon jail, bashed up juvenile offenders in the judicial lock up. This he has been doing to terrorise them so as to induct them in his gang of drug peddlers.
Following this modus operandi, Fauji recruited in his gang, Rohit and Bijender, the two youngsters of Old Faridabad, caught in the case of brown sugar smuggling. Fauji functioned through his kingpin, Devinder Chaila, hailing from Hissar.
Devinder Chaila, coerced the teenagers to work for Fauji as soon as the youngsters come out of the jail on bail, or acquitted by the courts. In a similar manner, the young culprits booked for the marijuana smuggling, received the necessary training and instructions in the jail, he said.
The SSP pointed out that the police were making all efforts to arrest Devinder Chaila and his accomplices to unearth the international links of the drug peddlers.
There has been a steep rise in the cases of petty social crime, where accused are booked under the excise, narcotics, gambling and 'satta' acts. Such a crime perpetrated by the anti-social elements, land and mines mafia, and rag-to-riches new wealthies, accounts for 60 per cent of the total cases registered in a year in the district.
In order to curb these social crimes, the police launched a campaign to haul up petty criminals indulging in such social crimes.
During the last fortnight, the police here registered about 90 cases against the gamblers, and booked around 175 persons, and seized a cash of about Rs 1 lakh.
Similarly, the police booked 120 criminals under the Excise Act, and recovered 7,000 pouches, 300 bottles of country-made liquor and 60 bottles of IMFL. A large number of criminals indulging in 'satta' have also been apprehended. The criminals indulging in the petty social crime due to money-culture, have been contributing to other incidents of crime such as molesting women, murders, dacoities, highway robberies and so on.
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